Seeing the Light

"Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing
from the keen eye of a clever rogue -- how eager he is, how clearly his paltry
soul sees the way to his end; he is the reverse of the blind, but his keen
eyesight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion
to his cleverness?"-Plato

by Jeffrey Klein May/June 1997

In September of 1995, I attended the Northern California kickoff
of the Clinton/Gore campaign. Ten months earlier I had witnessed the panic
Gingrich's victory had provoked in the White House. In subsequent months
President Clinton had exhorted amoral operatives, like chief strategist Dick
Morris, to do whatever it took to regain political control. After all, since
the victorious Gingrich hadn't played it straight, didn't the nation's commander
in chief have the right to rise above the rules? I was now curious to see how
this logic was playing out.

The luncheon fundraiser took place in the bowels of San Francisco's
Fairmont Hotel, which sits atop Nob Hill. Most of the $1,000-a-seat ticket holders
(mine was a gift from someone who'd purchased a table) who crowded into the
downstairs ballroom appeared to be genuine Clinton supporters. A senior
administration official once told me that nothing under $250,000 really
registers on the White House policy radar. Still, in order to qualify for
federal matching funds, the Clinton/Gore campaign needed to raise $29 million in
contributions of $1,000 or less. Thus, these relatively low-dollar donors were
encouraged (by extensive security checks and expensive souvenirs) to feel as if
they were entering a subterranean sanctum open only to people of substance.

Musical grace notes were provided by San Francisco's beloved
Glide Memorial United Methodist Church choir, a diverse group crossing both race
and class lines. In his preliminary remarks President Clinton alluded to them
as the essence of Democratic Party values. During the luncheon, the president's
optimism contrasted sharply with the gloomy mood I'd seen pervade the White
House 10 months earlier. To the cheers of some 700 supporters, Clinton attacked
the forces of social decay, notably Calvin Klein. "Maybe I'm just getting old-fashioned,
but I just came out of my shoes when I saw those teenagers depicted the way
they were in those Calvin Klein ads. I thought it was wrong." (At a
subsequent fundraiser in Hollywood, Clinton would initially find himself seated
next to, and chatting happily with, Calvin Klein. That event was completely
closed to the press and no word or pictures of the two men together ever leaked
out.)

On this particular day, a bit of seating luck came my way.
As the opening festivities subsided, the man in charge of the event -- in fact,
the man in charge of all fundraising for the Clinton/Gore campaign –
Terry McAuliffe, sat down near me. Several questions had already occurred to me
after reading the program. Top billing as "National Finance Board of Directors"
was given to Walter Shorenstein (#11), San Francisco's most visible real estate
magnate; Dick Blum, Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband; Susie Tompkins (#90),
co-founder of Esprit clothing; and Chong Lo, a name then unknown to me.

Each had been given a moment in the limelight before Gore
and Clinton spoke. Although not on the list, a fifth "director"- Ernest Gallo -- was also heralded from
the podium. No doubt Gallo's bundled largesse had reached the requisite level
after the program's printing deadline.

I was tempted to ask McAuliffe about Gallo, since his family
had stood out as Bob Dole's most generous financial backer over the years. In
fact, Dole sponsored the legislation (nicknamed the "Gallo Amendment")
that will save the Gallo family an estimated $104 million in inheritance taxes.
Of course, the Gallos gave heavily to both sides whenever they had a pressing
political need; in 1995, Clinton had helped the Gallo company, which is the nation's
top-selling wine maker, retain $2.5 million in federal market promotion money.

Before I could ask McAuliffe how Gallo's values fit with
those of the Democratic Party, Walter Shorenstein took his turn at the podium,
and McAuliffe -- to my surprise -proceeded to mock him. McAuliffe said, in so
many witty words, that "Old Walter" was so hungry to be seen as the
most connected of the connected that he was easily manipulated and something of
a fool. I knew that early in his fundraising career, McAuliffe had worked with
Shorenstein, so the edge in McAuliffe's satiric asides unsettled me.

I asked him whether Dick Gephardt, the House minority
leader, was upset that Clinton/Gore was raising so much money so early in the campaign.
I knew that the bitter succession rivalry between Gore and Gephardt was so
familiar in the White House that aides frequently referred to it as
"G2." No, McAuliffe bragged, he'd just spoken to Gephardt that week.
The president's fundraising was succeeding so far ahead of schedule that there
would be more than enough money to satisfy everyone else. There was something
roguish about McAuliffe's delivery. He was clearly an intelligent man and charming
as well, but what purpose did his cleverness serve?

Sixteen months later, McAuliffe co-chaired the inaugural festivities
at Clinton and Gore's request, but declined their repeated pleas to head the
Democratic National Committee. During Clinton's inaugural week, I read a disturbing
puff piece about McAuliffe in the Washington Post. The newspaper that broke Watergate
celebrated McAuliffe's power over the press, noting that with one phone call to
Mort Zuckerman, the owner of the New York Daily News, McAuliffe had managed to get
reporter Dave Eisenstadt fired. In a downplayed 420-word story, Eisenstadt had
raised suspicions about McAuliffe's connections to Asia-linked political operatives.

Contemplating McAuliffe, I searched for and found an astute
source that helped clarify my feelings:

"Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing
from the keen eye of a clever rogue -- how eager he is, how clearly his paltry
soul sees the way to his end; he is the reverse of the blind, but his keen
eyesight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion
to his cleverness?"

This quote occurs in the midst of perhaps the most famous
allegory in Western philosophy -- that of the cave in Plato's The Republic.

As you may recall, Plato writes that human beings sit
shackled in a cave with their backs to the cave's mouth. A fire behind them projects
shadows from puppets onto the wall in front of them. The people mistake these
shadows for reality. Plato believes that anyone able to leave the cave and go
into the sunlight would gain the wisdom of seeing things as they actually are.
But he also suggests that those lacking moral discipline will use this knowledge
in unethical ways.

Despite his disclaimers, Terry McAuliffe (see "Big Game
Hunter") knows
a lot more about Clinton/Gore fundraising than any of the $1,000 donors could
discern from the shadows projected onto the Fairmont's walls. Before the Northern
California kickoff lunch, for example, the campaign held a private reception at
which table captains and large contributors chatted with the president and had their
photos taken. Prior to this reception, higher level donors met with the
president in his hotel suite.

Almost all of the funds collected as a result of such transactions
throughout the U.S. -- and abroad -- went toward television commercials. We had
no real campaign in a traditional sense because the president spent most of his
cash projecting a controlled image to the American public via television. Many midlevel
donors engaged in a similarly cosmetic transaction: They could boast to their
friends that they had talked with Bill about policy, and that as photos (which now
hang framed on their office walls) were snapped, the President of the United
States of America had asked about their youngest child by name. (Of course,
this president had briefing cards on major donors handed to him right before
his meetings.)

The exchange of souvenir photos for cash to buy presidential
TV ads is repulsive enough on an aesthetic level. But if we can bear to inspect
more closely, we'll see that this kind of merchandising is also eroding the
very foundations of our democracy.

For example, Chong Lo, one of the "National Finance
Board of Directors" at the Clinton/Gore fundraiser I attended, had changed
her name from Esther Chu after being convicted of felony income-tax evasion. A
few weeks before this fundraiser she'd sat with Clinton and Gore and Terry
McAuliffe at one of the infamous coffees McAuliffe arranged in the White House Map
Room. Within a year she'd be arrested again on 13 charges of bank and mortgage fraud.

At least this little fish was caught. Liu Tai-Ying is chairman
of KMT, the $3 billion conglomerate owned by Taiwan's Kuomintang Party. On the
day of the September fundraiser, he flew into San Francisco and rejoined former
White House aide Mark Middleton, who took him to meet Clinton at the luncheon.
Liu claims his sole purpose was to thank Clinton for allowing the president of
Taiwan permission to visit his alma mater, Cornell. But a third party has claimed
that at a July meeting held in Taiwan between Liu Tai-Ying and Mark Middleton,
Liu offered to donate $15 million to the Democratic Party. An organizer of the
September event told me Middleton's last-minute demand for two reception
tickets had come through unorthodox channels.

After Taiwan's president visited the U.S., the Chinese
retaliated with war games in the strait between the two countries. Clinton countered
by dispatching two aircraft carrier battle groups. Clinton's chief liaison to
Taiwan at that time, Arkansas lawyer James Wood, told Taiwanese business
leaders that these ships cost the U.S. government a lot of money and that some
reasonable reciprocity would be appreciated. In 1994, the Taiwanese put McAuliffe's
former law and lobbying firm on retainer. Hillary Clinton had asked McAuliffe
to sever ties with the firm and he says he did - two months after the Taiwanese
arrangement. McAuliffe repeatedly told Mother Jones he ceased to have a financial
connection to the firm. But he did admit that the firm leased him an office
during the campaign and continued to cut him checks under the undisclosed terms
of the buyout of his partnership.

With the possible exception of Bill Clinton, we are all
ignorant about the nature and extent of corruption that pervaded the 1996 presidential
campaign. As of this writing, more than enough evidence has surfaced for
Attorney General Janet Reno to bring in an independent counsel.

Turning toward the light, Plato said, is initially
confusing, painful, even blinding. But if not now, when? We're in a time of relative
peace and prosperity at the same moment our democracy is being stolen and
fenced to the highest bidder.

Progressives and conservatives can use differing logic but
still come to a common understanding of our current political crisis. Progressives
are, of course, not surprised that an unregulated market for buying politicians
would spin out of control. An Indonesian potentate's co-optation of the
presidency isn't significantly different from, say, Dwayne Andreas' lifelong, unpunished
manipulations on behalf of his food conglomerate, Archer Daniels Midland. But
for conservatives, there has always been a clear distinction. Many believe the
wealthy should dominate American politics because they have a greater stake in
the system's stability. However, conservatives are beginning to realize that in
the new global marketplace the rich no longer necessarily have an enduring
stake in domestic welfare.

George Washington, in his farewell address, warned:
"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to
believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly
awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the
most baneful foes of republican government.... The great rule of conduct for
us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to
have with them as little political connexion as possible." Washington's
caution must be extended today to include domestic agents -- political or
corporate --who operate on behalf of foreign interests over American ones.

Our first president and Plato remain good guides for both progressives
and conservatives. In a wise society, the law serves as a code of moral
discipline for citizens with differing views. That's why we must unite in our
call for unimpeded, untainted investigations with the full force of law even if
-- at the end of the day -- Bill Clinton and Al Gore share a disgraced exile
with Newt Gingrich.